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Bob Hewitt axed from tennis Hall of Fame

Erika Niedowski

Former doubles champion Bob Hewitt has been suspended from the International Tennis Hall of Fame after an investigation into allegations that he sexually abused girls he coached, and his legacy has been stripped from the institution.

The Hall executive committee voted unanimously this week to suspend Hewitt indefinitely after an outside investigation deemed credible the allegations of multiple women who said they were abused by Hewitt while he was coaching them decades ago, Hall CEO Mark Stenning told The Associated Press.

The Australian-born Hewitt won 15 Grand Slam doubles titles in the 1960s and 1970s and was inducted into the Hall in 1992.

No one has ever been suspended or expelled from the Hall. Stenning said the committee did not consider expulsion because it was believed that would require a criminal conviction.

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Hewitt, who is 72 and lives in South Africa, also was permanently removed from the South African Sport and Arts Hall of Fame on Friday, a spokesman said.

A man who answered Hewitt's South African-listed mobile phone number said he was "not available for comment."

The Weekend Post newspaper in South Africa quoted him last year as saying, "I only want to apologise if I offended anyone in any way."

Stenning said Hewitt's plaque in the Tennis Hall and other references to him there and on the Hall's website, were removed on Thursday. The website had called him an "enduringly elegant player" and a "master of the doubles craft."

"His legacy ceases to exist in the Hall of Fame," Stenning said.

Suellen Sheehan, who accuses Hewitt of raping her when she was 9 years old and was one of his tennis proteges in South Africa, told the AP on Friday that she stayed up late into the night to hear news that he had been removed from the Tennis Hall.

"He will never ever go up on that wall. My work is done," said Sheehan, now 43 and a businesswoman in Johannesburg.

"That is what I set out to do. To all people out there who feel that they will never be heard or believed, you know, we have now been believed."

Sheehan said she and three other alleged victims decided to pursue the case together and had "a good chance of justice."

Sheehan said the International Tennis Hall decision would now put pressure on South African authorities to investigate Hewitt, who is believed to live in a seaside town on South Africa's south coast.

Twiggy Tolken, another alleged victim, said in an email to the AP from New Zealand - where she lives after having left South Africa - that she was "overwhelmed" at the news.

"We have all waited a very long time for the HOF to make a decision, sometimes even thinking they would not," Tolken wrote. "I am extremely happy they made the right decision. Bob Hewitt has got away with far too much for far too long."